Tell Your Senators: Merrick Garland Must NOT Be Confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court

Friday, April 15, 2016

Support NRA-ILA

The U.S. Senate needs to hear from you TODAY that Merrick Garland MUST NOT be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

For weeks (including here, here, here, here, and here), we have been warning of the grave danger to your rights posed by Barack Obama’s choice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. With typical arrogance, Obama deliberately chose the candidate with the most anti-gun record of his short-list of finalists. Now he and his usual collaborators in the media and academia seek to mock and disparage the principled stand pro-freedom groups, including your NRA, are taking against Garland.

Senate leadership has held firm in their determination to hold the line against letting Obama tip the court to his ideological advantage.

Make no mistake, Obama has a carefully planned strategy to advance Garland’s nomination that (in typical fashion) depends on exploiting polite acts of goodwill, like the courtesy meetings some Senators have granted to Garland. An article in the New York Times candidly detailed how Obama’s strategists see such meetings as the vital first step in their plan. Like the snake oil salesmen they are, they know they have to first get their foot in the door before they can begin making their pitch.

Garland’s antigun ideology is clear from his record. While serving in his capacity as an appeals court judge, for example, Garland voted to give D.C.'s unconstitutional gun ban a second chance. He also cast a vote to uphold a Clinton-era policy of documenting and registering law-abiding gun buyers, despite federal statutes passed specifically to prevent this.

National registration. The individual right protected by the Second Amendment. Gun bans. These are issues that cut to the heart of the right to keep and bear arms. And whenever he had the chance, Garland was on the wrong side of them.

We’ve seen before the theatrical fury and disbelief that Obama and his surrogates display when they don’t get their way, and we’re seeing it again now. That’s why it is critically important for your Senators to know they have your support in standing against Garland’s nomination.

Obama and his cronies know that the Supreme Court’s support for the individual right to keep and bear firearms under the Second Amendment is (at best for pro-gun advocates) evenly split. The next appointment will inevitably sway the court for or against upholding the promise of the landmark Heller and McDonald decisions.

And that is why your U.S. Senators need to hear from you right now! You elected them. They work for you. You must tell them in the clearest possible terms: Merrick Garland must not be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Use the “Write Your Lawmakers” feature of our website or call the congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to make your voices heard.

Obama’s strategists are working overtime to secure the crown jewel of his antigun legacy: a U.S. Supreme Court that will reverse Heller for all time. Don’t delay. Take action to save your rights now!

On May 20th, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington rejected a motion by the government defendants to dismiss the lawsuit filed by NRA and the SAF against Washington’s gun control ...

Beginning July 1, 2019, all ammunition transactions in the state of California will be subject to a background check requirement. But in order to implement this requirement, the California Department of Justice (“DOJ”) must first ...

On May 10, President Trump signed the Target Practice and Marksmanship Training Support Act into law. This NRA-backed law will help promote firearm safety and training and enjoyment of the shooting sports by freeing up more federal ...

By now gun owners have become accustomed to a certain measure of ignorance from anti-gun politicians and their lapdogs in the mainstream press on matters of firearms policy. It’s the flamboyant stridency of that ignorance that remains ...

Ever since taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats have been waging an unprecedented assault on the Second Amendment. Led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.), the caucus has been an entity in virtual ...

At the National Retail Federation’s 2018 convention in New York City, Levi Strauss & Co. Brand President James Curleigh told those assembled that the multinational pants manufacturer intends to be the “most relevant lifestyle brand.” Evidently, part ...

When I started with NRA in 1995, most of the attention our organization received was over legislative efforts in Congress. Firearm-related legislation at the federal level obviously has an impact on far more law-abiding gun ...

Week two of the Bloomberg school massive open online course on “Reducing Gun Violence” ran the same week that one of the lecturers was in the news for exclusionary comments that apply more readily to his course ...

As NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox reported in March, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up a challenge by an NRA state affiliate to a New York City gun control scheme that effectively prohibits lawfully ...

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.